NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY (960-1127)

The box may have been used as a cosmetic box. The soft and greyishgreen glaze is comparable to that seen on the finest Yue wares of the 10th century known as mise or ‘secret colour’. Compare to a box with a countersunk base and carved with a very similar decoration, illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji: Yueyao, vol. 4, Shanghai, 1981, pl. 183; another with a foot ring and slightly varying decoration illustrated ibid., pl. 200; and a third example also with a foot ring but carved with three peony blossoms in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo;New York;San Francisco, 1981, no. 9.